Book excerpt: This book offers an approach for using portfolios with elementary level students and shows how the portfolio process can serve as a powerful motivational tool by encouraging students to assess their own work, set goals, and take responsibility for future learning. Throughout the book, there are stories that illuminate the lessons learned by students, teachers, and the principal at a school in Winnetka, Illinois, that has used portfolios for more than a decade. The 11 lessons provide vignettes of school life: (1) "Children Can Assess Their Own Learning"; (2) "Children Learn All the Time"; (3) "Teachers Learn All the Time, Too"; (4) "Getting Clear on Portfolio Purpose, Ownership, and Content"; (5) "Portfolios Encourage Children to Think about Their Learning"; (6) "Portfolios Respond to the Individual Needs of Students"; (7) "Designating a Space and Place for Gathering Memories"; (8) "A Celebration Connects Child, Portfolio, and Audience"; (9) "Teaching Parents How to Be Part of the Portfolio Conference"; (10) "Listening for Children's Meaning"; and (11) "Creating a Language for Portfolios." An appendix presents the philosophy of the Winnetka, Illinois, public schools. (Contains 68 references.) (SM)